Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Booknotes (December '12)

As first glance, this is a very appealing book -- well illustrated, with good Heiser maps, and all indications are that it is thoroughly researched. This and Scott Mingus's Flames Beyond Gettysburg should form a nice pairing (Mingus wrote the foreword to Wingert's book). Among other things, Wingert covers the defensive preparations of Harrisburg, the fighting at Oyster Point and Sporting Hill, and the bombardment of Carlisle. While having gone no further than page flipping, I would venture that most Gettysburg students would want to grab a copy of this.

During the war, McSween wrote more than 80 letters to the Fayetteville Observer under the pen name "Long Grabs". His correspondence covers fighting in Virginia and North Carolina, as well as experiences training conscripts in his home state.

Grandchamp, the author of several works of Rhode Island military history, here offers a biography of Edward Cross, who fought well in many great eastern theater battles before being mortally wounded at Gettysburg. It is a warts and all look at the man's life, with the book suggesting that he was an alcoholic with a combative personality off the battlefield, as well.

Thanks, Chris. If you liked "My Brave Boys," you might also like my latest book, "Our War: Days and Events in the Fight for the Union." Among other things it includes new material on Cross and the Fifth, including a firsthand account of his death that Mark Travis and I did not have when we wrote MBB.

Robert Grandchamp, for whose Cross biography I wrote the foreword, is full of new information about the colonel. Robert is a dogged researcher.